


Val'kiriya

by VarjoRuusu



Category: Tomb Raider (Video Games)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Developing Relationship, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending, I really have no idea how to tag this, With Extras, game storyline, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 19:10:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18762655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VarjoRuusu/pseuds/VarjoRuusu
Summary: "Hours later the battle is over and the dead on both sides are beyond numbering. Lara's hands shake and her eyes stare blankly at a stone until she hears his footsteps. How she already knows his footsteps she has no idea, she's known this man for two days, maybe three, she's lost count. But suddenly he's there, his presence a comfort as yet another wounded scream breaks the night.“Will you tell me more about this place?” she asks tiredly, unwilling to look away. His eyes are the lightest green she's ever seen and something in them is powerful enough to banish all her girlish shyness. He hesitates for a long moment, then smiles, a smile that doesn't reach his pale green eyes.“You've earned that much,” he says softly, and she follows him to the top of the watch tower.





	Val'kiriya

**Author's Note:**

> I've started writing for two new fandoms in less than two weeks, what is happening. Anyway, this kind of struck me as I played Rise of the Tomb Raider. I don't know, I saw their chemistry and attraction immediately, to the point where I wondered what on earth was in my morning tea because what. Sadly there aren't many fanfics so I must be a minority, but here I am adding my small strange word spew to the pile.
> 
> Title is Valkyrie in Russian (so says google) even though this story has nothing to do with that or ever uses the word, but I guess Lara kind of reminds me of one.

Lara is young, but she's not naive. She can feel something between them, an energy, a tension. It's quiet, at first, enough so that she can easily push it below the surface, but it's been there since the first time she really saw him, when she'd opened that cell door.

At first it's about survival, escape. Plain, simple. She thought she would die in that river, and she'd never been so cold as when she'd finally fought her way back to consciousness, a bearskin wrapped around her and a fire stoked in the small stove in the corner of the cave. The tea he gives her burns her hands even though it's barely warm and slowly, slowly she can feel her fingers again. She does rest because she knows she needs it, the physical exertion combined with the toll it took to tell her story, but when he doesn't return for almost a day, she worries, and there isn't any time to waste. She finds an old jacket and a gun to go with her bow, and she goes back out into the cold.

She finds the mine easily enough, but then she's out of arrows, out of bullets, and there's a gun pointed at her. Then there isn't, and there's Jacob, watching her with a guarded expression as the man between them falls, knife protruding from his back.

“ _We seem to be making a habit of saving each other,”_ he jokes after a moment and Lara manages a smile, ignoring the tugging inside her, demanding to be heard.

They're separated again, down in the mines, and she makes it out, makes it to their valley. Again he turns up just in time as the redhead, Sofia, his _daughter,_ and isn't that the strangest thing Lara's heard all day, is about to put an arrow through her. He vouches for her and Lara can't help but see him in a different light now.

He looks like there's something he wants to say to her, but they don't have the time. Trinity is coming and they have to be ready. She can read it in his eyes though, see that whatever he has to tell her is important.

“ _Later,”_ she says softly and he nods, and they go their separate ways again. He tells her where to find a suit of armour in one of the huts, tells her to wear it, that it will protect her when the time comes.

The attack begins, she can hear it through her radio and over her head as the choppers lay waste to the valley. She rushes, as much as she can, to find him. Once more, there is a gun to his head, him and two other men. He catches her eyes and shakes his head when she moves to come to their aid. One man dies, then he kills the Trinity soldier, tossing a new weapon into her hands as they fight for their lives, surrounded on all sides by flames and death.

Hours later the battle is over and the dead on both sides are beyond numbering. Lara's hands shake and her eyes stare blankly at a stone until she hears his footsteps. How she already knows his footsteps she has no idea, she's known this man for two days, maybe three, she's lost count. But suddenly he's there, his presence a comfort as yet another wounded scream breaks the night.

“ _Will you tell me more about this place?”_ she asks tiredly, unwilling to look away. His eyes are the lightest green she's ever seen and something in them is powerful enough to banish all her girlish shyness. He hesitates for a long moment, then smiles, a smile that doesn't reach his pale green eyes.

“ _You've earned that much,”_ he says softly, and she follows him to the top of the watch tower.

He tells her of his ancestors, of the Divine Source and what his people believe it is. It's no more than she suspected, from the tablets and the writings that she's seen, but listening to his words, she thinks she truly believes, and that feeling inside her struggles again, wanting to be let free to roam around her heart.

The moon is high and they can still see Trinity in the distance, searching for survivors to capture and execute, searching for their own wounded to tend to or dispose of. Across the valley there is chaos, but here they have a moment of peace.

 _“This is not your burden,”_ he says softly, and she insists that it is, it became hers when her father died for it.

 _“Lara,”_ is a whisper on the cold night air as he stops closer, his eyes still so unreadable, and she stands her ground, waiting.

The feeling has clawed it's way free now, free enough at least that she can recognise it for what it is. Passion, desire, a connection that runs as deep as her soul. She doesn’t back away or try to stop him when he leans closer, one hand rising to brush fingertips over her cheek and the cut above her eyebrow. She doesn't move when he closes the distance and kisses her softly. Inside her, her walls begin to crumble and just as softly she kisses back.

He asks her again to forget the Divine Source, their foreheads pressed together and eyes closed. She takes a breath, rebuilding and fortifying her walls as she steps back, her eyes blank, and tells him she'll find it, with or without his help.

She doesn't know what to think when Sofia helps her, or when she shoots Ana without hesitation. She's changing, just like she did on Yamatai, she's becoming harder, stronger. She's not sure she likes the person she's becoming, and she thinks of Jacob, his eyes always with a deep sadness, the only thing she's ever been able to read easily from him.

She brings him the Atlas, and his back is to her. When he turns, his face is blank, all emotion hidden from her once again. Lara stands defiant before him and he searches her face. Then, after a long moment, his shoulders relax and he smiles softly at her, shaking his head. Cautiously she answers with a smile of her own.

He stands back as she puzzles it out, finds the ancient city and then….finds the entrance, right under their feet.

“ _You knew,”_ she says as she turns to him, and he looks sad, resigned, lost, as he nods. Her moment of realisation is interrupted by Trinity, and she doesn't have the time to let it make its way into her head and into her heart. If she did she knew it would hurt too much for her to keep going.

She doesn't allow herself to think of it, not when they take Jonah, not when Jacob calls out to her and she turns. He's wounded, and she rushes to him, keeling on the floor and pressing her hand over the wound on his ribs, bleeding heavily onto his blue coat.

His eyes are open then, and she sees everything. Admiration, wisdom, pain, sadness, a range of emotions too wide for her to catalogue. She tells him she's going after Jonah and he smiles, gripping her hand.

 _“Do what you must,”_ he said and she nods, ready to stand.

She kisses him instead, fast and hard and filled with all the need bubbling in her heart and he kisses her back just the same, one hand tangling in her ponytail and pulling her impossibly closer. They separate with a gasp and she doesn't look back as she goes after the helicopter, back to the gulag where she first found Jacob.

She brings back the Atlas, Jonah, and three other men who had been held captive there. Jonah is on deaths door and she won't let go of his hand and Jacob comes, kneels over him, and…he prays. And Lara doesn't believe her eyes, but it seems to be working and then…she see's Jacob, really sees.

He still has scrapes, bruises, but he's _healed._ There is no gunshot wound in his side, the largest of his cuts are now small, like they're weeks, not hours, old. He meets her eyes when he's finished, and then he walks away, outside where they can have a moment alone.

“ _You're him, aren't you?”_ she asks. _“The Deathless Prophet.”_

She can see in the set of his spine, the slump of his shoulders, that she is right. He's the man the legends tell of, and he is hundreds of years old. He turns to look at her, the truth written on his face, and a sadness so deep it breaks her heart to see and that's when she realises….it's not just everything he's been though, no, it's too fresh. He thinks that because now she knows, he's lost her too.

She kisses him then, stepping forward into his space, pushing until his back is pressed against the rocks, his arms tight around her, her fingers tight around the edges of his jacket. She kisses him like they're both going to die tomorrow, and given how hard Trinity has been trying, they might.

He tells her the truth of the source but she finds she no longer cares. All she cares about are these people and keeping them safe. Even when he tells her of the Deathless Ones, that they are his creation, she isn't scared.

“ _I knew as soon as I saw you, that I could trust you,”_ he says quietly. _“That you would be the one.”_

“ _The one for what?”_ she wonders and he smiles sadly.

“ _Don't you see? All of this was my doing. And it must finally come to an end. You, Lara, you are the one to end it.”_

“ _The secret entrance,”_ she whispers and he nods. The staircases opens and she looks death in the face, knowing she may not come back from this. She turns to him, a million questions on her face, none of them important anymore.

Without a word he takes her hand, leads her to another cave, similar to the one when he pulled her from the river. A heavy rug closes off the entrance and she's already tugging off her armour before the flap as fully fallen. His mouth is hot against hers and her skin burns where his fingers touch. It's too much and not enough and it's not likely either one of them is going to make it out of this alive.

It's no longer a choice for her, this fight, it stopped being a choice a long time ago. She's wary as she heads through the secret passageway, toward the old city, but somehow, she isn't afraid. She's ready to face her end if her end is what will save these people.

The Deathless are harder to kill than she expected, from what Jacob told her, but nothing is entirely immune to fire or a well placed shotgun blast to the head. Konstantin is worse, his words echoing long after he's dead, how her father was murdered by Trinity because he got too close.

Ana finds the Source before she does, and they stand there with guns raised on one another. A guard runs in, screaming that they're surrounded, only to be silenced by Jacob's axe in his back. Ana puts three bullets in Jacob and Lara wants to rush forward, but she holds her ground, turning away when Ana uncovers the Source. The light is blinding, then it's in Lara's hands and the Deathless are coming. She looks to Jacob and he smiles, the first genuine smile she's ever seen.

 _“It's okay,”_ he says, and her throat closes because she knows, if she destroys the Source she'll stop Trinity, she'll stop Ana, she'll stop the Deathless, but she'll be killing him too. She doesn't know if she can live with it.

She smashes the Source. Around them the Deathless scream, then vanish in ashes, and she runs to Jacob.

“ _Hold on,”_ she pleads as she helps him sit up.

“ _I've held on for too long already,”_ he says, his breathing laboured and his face etched with pain.

“ _You knew I was going to destroy it,”_ she says quietly. _“And you sent me in here anyway.”_

“ _In all my years, I've met few as extraordinary as you,”_ he smiles weakly.

“ _I'm sorry,”_ she whispers, one hand on his face. _“All I wanted was to make a difference.”_

“ _You already have.”_ He catches her chin in his hand and makes her look at him. _“You already have.”_

His hand cups her face one last time as he begins to grow pale, like the colour is seeping out of him, like he's turning to ash. He smiles for her, once last time, then there is nothing but dust where he once was. Lara clenches her fists and bites her lip, but doesn't try to stop the tears.

She could have loved him, she thinks later, when she's finally, finally, on a plane home, days later. Ana's body is beside her in the large cargo plane, wrapped in a plain black bag, Trinity's last bullet having found its mark.

It's only a week later when Jonah uncovers another Trinity cell down in Mexico and Lara is on her way out the door before she's even properly packed. She will take them down, she will avenge her father, she will make a difference in the world. She will make her own difference. She hopes somewhere, somehow, Jacob is proud of her. She knows her father already is.


End file.
